


Not His Token

by thefrizz112358



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bellamione - Freeform, F/F, Lesbian Power Couple, Not Beta Read, Out of Character, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-04-02 05:07:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4047220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrizz112358/pseuds/thefrizz112358
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OOC, canon compliant until Book 7.  Hermione tires of being tokenized as the only muggle-born witch in the Order of the Phoenix, sexually harassed by Ron, and generally disregarded by Harry.  She becomes an informant for Bellatrix, who needs information in order to get back into the Dark Lord's good graces.  Eventual major character deaths and Bellamione.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Against Tenderness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The scenes immediately preceding and following the Trio's brief captivity in the Malfoy Manor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear All, your comments were vital to this chapter's completion. Thank you. I've read some of y'all's works avidly, and was thrilled to receive your praise. Now that I've written this chapter, I may respond and/or make appropriate edits to the first chapter I posted.
> 
> Now that I've found my footing, any and all critical feedback is welcome. 
> 
> Warning: from the Zora Neale Hurston quote to the first set of ellipses ("..."), I describe emotional and sexual abuse. I have a personal/ethical stake in including this content, which I hope contrasts Bellatrix's torture (in the following section) in a productive way, but don't want anyone to be caught off-guard.
> 
> “No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife” –Zora Neale Hurston (1928)

Ron couldn’t wait any longer.  Harry had advised him to steer clear of Hermione until she was ready to talk, but he had spent the past month searching for her and Harry.  She had to forgive him.   _Don’t I at least deserve for her to listen?_   He reasoned.

She was poring over _The Tales of Beedle the Bard_.  From behind, he wrapped his arms around her.  Hermione kept absolutely still.  “You know when I was gone,” Ron whispered, “I thought I saw you everywhere.  In the street, in the pub –but I couldn’t reach out to you, ‘cause what if a Snatcher was watching?”  He rubbed her stomach and kissed the top of her head.  "I just had to follow the light."

Hermione used to freeze –at first unconsciously—when Ron began to be physically affectionate with her when they first went on the run. When he would climb into her bunk and hold her all night, or kiss her gently, or bonily finger her, she would fly outside of her body, not speak, not move.  They didn't talk about it.  Ron didn’t think it odd that she never approached him.  Harry didn’t ask questions; he assumed they were a couple now. 

Were they a couple?  Hermione had missed him when he was gone, had worried herself sick over the danger he’d be in.  With her parents safe, and Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts, there were few people other than Harry she’d spend her emotional energy on.  _I just want my friend back.  Be safe.  Please be safe._

Sometimes she asked Ron not to touch her.  In the dark, she could hear his breath stop, and then grow thin with tears.  “I know you’re too good for me, you’re perfect, Hermione, but I love you.  I’ve always loved you.  Nobody else knows me the way you do…”

Now, in the daylight, Hermione couldn’t repress her anger.  She stood up, shoving Ron back.  “Don’t you touch me, Ronald Weasley!  We could get killed any day now, and I’m not going to spend any of my time playing games –I’m not your mother.  I’m not your girlfriend.  I am a human being who happens to be a woman.  If you treat me like anything less than that again, I won’t be your friend.”  Instead of storming off, as she felt she should, she stared Ron in the eye.

He dropped his gaze.  “I don’t think of you as less than a person, Hermione.”

“Where’s Harry?  We need to pay Xenophilius Lovegood a visit.  Now.”

… 

Taking the leather-bound case of them under her arm, Bellatrix said she would sharpen her knives herself.

“And damn you, Narcissa, for trusting the house-elves with them in the first place!”

Bentley had his work cut out for him already.  Dinner for four, and the pool under the house to clean and heat before her evening swim –her joints had given her no peace since her escape from Azkaban; now she preferred always to be on a raid or underwater.  The elf was tired.  He would not –couldn’t—sharpen and clean the heirlooms with the reverence appropriate to them, thought Bellatrix.

She slammed the door to her chamber behind her. 

Spread on her desk, the blades shone in the dim afternoon light.  She laid out clean cloths and a bottle of mordant-smelling oil for cleaning.  In Azkaban she had forgotten that she missed hearing the slow hiss of her knife against the granite whetstone, the perfumes specific to her work.  She finished with two daggers and hung her head.

_Can I cry yet?  I may cry._

Not that Bellatrix was fond of shedding tears.  But she missed being able to, having so few things to share only with herself. 

She stood and paced the room’s perimeter.  Poems she knew by heart as a child: gone.  Jokes: gone.  Vision: failing.  _And my patronus used to be a falcon_.  She hadn’t cast one since the ‘seventies.  _Shit._

Unwilling to give herself over to self-pity this afternoon, she walked to the window.  _My vision’s not that bad yet, not in this light.  I can see the stumpy rosebushes, and the near wall of the labyrinth, and the top of the yew tree beyond the gate—_

There were shadows, people moving toward the gate. 

…

“Get Draco.”  She led the Snatchers into the manor.  Three teenagers, one with a scar just like the boy’s: it might be them. 

She knew she’d seen the girl before.  Two years ago, it was almost endearing to watch her cast Stunning Spells with all the fervor necessary to cast Fiendfyre.  She’d laughed all the more that night, knowing the witch had no idea how dangerous she could be if she would open her mind a bit. 

…

Bellatrix felt the girl’s left leg pressing against the inside of her left knee.  She shoved back with all her lower bodyweight. “How did you brats get into my vault?”

“You would know!” Hermione snarled, “You would know if we broke into Gringotts.”  _I need to get her attention, for fuck’s sake_.  She pushed out with her right leg this time, and hard.  Bellatrix fell from her crouching position onto her.  Although the woman was light, the fastenings on Bellatrix’ dress combined with the airy high of a day without food made Hermione wince.

“Just don’t put me down there with them,” Hermione whispered, recalling Ron’s preferred methods of comforting her.

Bellatrix paused a moment in surprise.  _Is this mudblood fucking with me?_ Probably.  In which case, the girl was even better sport than she had thought. 

“Please,” said Hermione, loud enough for the Malfoy family to hear.  She looked into Bellatrix's eyes.  Each woman was inscrutable to the other.

“Don’t worry.  I shan’t.”  Bellatrix whispered into Hermione’s ear.  “Now! Tell me what else you took from my vault!”  Hermione shuddered at the sudden change in volume.

“Nothing!”

“No?  I don’t believe you.”

While Bellatrix lay on top of her, during the threats and even for this, Hermione was present in her body.  She was lightheaded with hunger, adrenaline and pain; more than this, she was astonished by how unafraid she felt.  True, she felt the point of the knife dragging against her skin, but she felt like she was learning from this feeling, and from the weight of the woman pressing her into the marble floor. 

After being held down so many times by the pretense of gentleness, this was literal, and rough.  It felt honest.  Hermione allowed the tears she’d held back so many months to fall.

“Bring up the goblin!”

…

They buried Dobby at Shell Cottage.  “Properly: without magic,” as Harry had ordered.  That night, Ron visited the small room where Hermione had asked Fleur to quarter her, away from the boys.

“‘Mione?”

She didn’t answer.

“You awake?”  He asked, sliding under the covers beside her. 

His hands were softer than usual.  He’d moisturized.  _How sweet._   She winced when his hands –covered in coconut oil from the kitchen, upon Fleur’s recommendation (she herself had used only that and soap as beauty products since the attack on her wedding)—ran over the healing skin where Bellatrix’ knife had pierced her.

“Bloody hell, Hermione.  I’m sorry.”

She used this opportunity to pull away and turn on the light.  “It’s no problem.  I think I’m going to have to heal this one without magic.  It didn’t respond to any of the spells I tried earlier tonight.”

“Well, you’re the best at spells between Harry and I, but maybe tomorrow you can ask Bill—“

“No, Ron.”

“But she carved that awful word into your skin!”

Hermione was puzzled.  “What word?”  She looked down at her arm, and saw only a mess of deep scratches and reddening skin.

“The M-word, Hermione.  Can’t you see it?”

“Please leave, Ronald.”

“But Hermione—“

“Get out now, or I’ll scream.”


	2. Dux Femina Facti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here be dragons, politics, and whiskey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear y'all, it didn't take long for me to break the seven-day pace I'd hoped to set for myself. Future chapters should be posted, I think, an average of every ten days. 
> 
> Each of these chapters are deeply personal to me in its own way, but I'd be in arrears of my sources if I didn't cite them. The chapter title comes from a friend, fellow poet, and anti-racist activist's tattoo. And from Virgil. The tattoo has its own story, which I won't retell here. Know only that it is Badass.
> 
> The question, "What's one thing you saw today that you don't think anyone else saw," is a fine mental exercise. My teacher Gaby poses it to her students, and it's a kind of encouragement I'd like to share with as wide an audience as possible. 
> 
> Thank you for your feedback. Mordant criticism is welcome, but the positivity and careful attention of your comments so far have been vitally encouraging.

Along with the rest on the Malfoy family, Bellatrix did not sleep that night.  She had borne the brunt of the Dark Lord’s anger when he arrived at the Manor.  From the disarray in the sparsely finished room, he knew at once that something was dangerously amiss.  He forced his way into Lucius’ mind which, since Bellatrix taught Draco Occulemency two years ago, had become by far the easiest to enter and plunder among the Manor’s residents.

The Dark Lord and Bellatrix understood each other: in a rage, he could usually exhaust his anger with two well-focused Cruciatus curses.  These he reserved for Bellatrix. 

He neither liked nor disliked inflicting harm upon his followers.  It was, he thought, necessary to the survival of his organization that its militarism be defined by hierarchy and the threat of violence.  Whether or not his indiscriminate use of dark magic enhanced the quality of suffering he evinced was immaterial.

To those who were aware of his motives, he was not a capricious Lord by any means.  His reasoning was logical: _inelegant, but pure_ was his motto.

Unlike most curses, the Cruciatus was one at which one excelled after being subjected to it.  Above protecting Draco and Narcissa from the full force of the Dark Lord’s wrath, Bellatrix received the curses in pursuit of knowledge that was –to say the least—arcane.

She screamed like a muggle caught in a bear trap. 

…

When he awoke, Harry sank deeper beneath the quilted comforter, digging with his toes to the far edge of the twin bed.  The wooden frame was very old, and it creaked ominously when he pulled the sheets around himself, but it was his first bed – _My first proper bed_ , he thought—since August. 

Ron’s bedclothes, he noticed, were tousled and empty.  _Well, that was oasis_.  Harry pushed the covers back down the length of his body, stretching his sore hamstrings, and hoped there would be breakfast.

Hermione had not expected to sleep.  After Ron left, she lay in the dark, trying to trace the wounds on her forearm she could not yet read.  She passed the fingers of her right hand across, and up and down its length.  She felt a rawness that was more emphatic in some places, but was just as mystified by the texture as what she was able to see in the lamplight the night before.  _I could really use a book on enchanted wounds right now_ , she thought.  _Maybe she carved a series of runes into my arm that will drive me homicidally insane, or the blade was impregnated with a potion or enchantment to inflame my lymph nodes, or sap me of my magic, or allow her to read my mind_ and _drive me homicidally insane…_  

The sun arose much sooner than she had expected, and she was comforted that she might have dozed off during the course of her musings.

…

“Are you sure that’s hers?”

“Positive.”

Hermione didn’t give the boys time to ask questions when she took the home-thrown mug of Polyjuice potion into her bedroom.  “Meet me outside with Griphook in five minutes.”

She decided not to transfigure her clothes until after her body was changed, _to avoid mis-sizing anything_ , she reminded herself.  True, she experienced more acute moral turmoil over the possibility of non-consensually looking at Bellatrix’s unclothed body than over planning to rob Gringotts bank, but Hermione was also a profoundly practical woman.

…

 _She must have cast a featherweight on her boots_ , Hermione thought, trying to straighten Bellatrix’s leg.  The Polyjuice transformation itself had not been painful; it was standing with stiff joints in a costume Bellatrix might have worn that made her wince: high heels, an ankle-length skirt, gloves past the elbow.  _Or she has arthritis medication that you don’t, Granger.  Focus_. 

For, in a way, she was focused, intensely so: the grounded, bodied feeling she’d experienced during Bellatrix’s torture was back, and just as palpable. 

She squinted the mirror.  _Her vision is shit.  How does she land a single jinx?_   Hermione mused, snapping her bag shut. _Her vision?_ I _look through_ her _eyes –whose vision is it?_ She shook Bellatrix’s head. 

In hindsight it was this absolutely deft feeling to which Hermione attributed her pluck in escaping Gringott’s security. It had not faded in the least after the Polyjuice’s effects were washed away.  Her flesh seemed to prickle deliciously inside its skin.  It was her newfound sense of self-possession combined with months of quick-thinking that flew a dragon through the roof of Gringotts. 

The trio had been in the air for thirty minutes when the dragon suddenly turned east, almost throwing them (even Harry) off its back and into a lake. 

“What the bloody hell’s it doing?” Screamed Ron, his head barely coming off of the dragon’s back.

“It’s headed toward the shore and,” Harry began, “—oh, no.”  Several cottages lined the near shore, toward which the dragon was making a beeline.  “Jump!”

They did.  Although they weren’t far from the water, each of them had the wind knocked out of them from the fall.  When Hermione surfaced, the cottages were on fire. 

“Holy shit!  Hell!”  The dragon had taken flight again, but even at a distance Harry could see the creature’s pale jaws were darker, redder.  The trio scrambled onto dry land just half a mile from the fires.

Hermione immediately set out at a run toward the destruction.  _There are people in there.  No warning.  Fuck._

Ron caught her around the waist, “Hermione, no!”  He pushed her to the ground. “It’s only a couple of muggles.  You can’t just—“

For a moment, even Ron looked put off by himself.  Harry stared at him, and did nothing to stop Hermione when she put Ron in a body bind, took his wand, and went to put the fires out herself.

It took less of her energy than she had expected, using two wands.  First, she cast a stasis charm on each building so that their structural integrity would last (and their rooves not come crashing down on their inhabitants).  Then, focusing on the sensation of plunging into the cold lake just minutes before, she summoned her strength and shouted, “ _AGUAMENTI MAXIMA!_ ”

Instead of a hose-like jet that she had conjured with _Aguamenti_ in the past, the streams of water rose like two fans, one on top of the other, until the lower one was just above the magically-reinforced cabin rooftops.  Then, at the same time, both fans of water fell, drowning the flames.

“We can’t stay.  Someone will notice all this magic.”  Harry had approached Hermione, leaving Ron petrified in the sand.  “That was brilliant.”

Hermione gave him a warped smile.  “I guess so.  Even if it was only for a couple of muggles,” she spat.  She turned away from the cabins and started toward Ron.

“What Ron said was right out, Hermione, but he wasn’t thinking.  He didn’t mean it.”

Hermione slowed down for Harry to catch up with her. In the gentlest voice she could muster, she asked, “Harry, why do you think I’m the only muggle-born witch in the Order?”

Harry walked with her in silence for half a minute.  He answered as honestly as he could.  “I don’t know.”

“And how much work did anyone in the Order do to help muggle-borns since the last war?”

Harry was puzzled.  “What do you mean?”

“The fact that you don't know is kind of my point, Harry.  There’s more to getting justice for people of muggle descent than making purebloods stop using the word ‘mudblood’.  And nobody in the Order seems to care about those things, let alone muggle lives.”

“But if you just told us what those things were, I’m sure we’d all support you.  We can make the right changes after the war’s over, Hermione.”

“Technical training in muggle trades so we can make a living in muggle society.  More staff dedicated to muggle victims of crime in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.  Mandatory OWLs in Muggle Studies for all Ministry employees.  People have been demanding these things for _decades_ , Harry.  And when did Chief Mugwump Albus fucking Dumbledore bring their proposals before the Wizengamot?”

Harry hung his head.  “I don’t know.”

“He never did, Harry.  Look at me.”  He did.  “I’m not just angry with Ron right now.  You understand that, right?  When Voldemort returned I thought I’d be fighting alongside you and Ron toward a very specific set of political goals.  I was recruited under false pretenses.”

Harry bristled at that.  “So, what? Do you think you’d have helped muggle-borns never having fought with us at all?  Or that Voldemort would be kinder to you if you joined with his side?”

“That’s not my point, Harry.  Nobody in this war is on my side, as far as blood is concerned.”  They arrived at Ron’s bound body.  “Come on.  Let’s get back to the cottage.”

…

Although Polyjuice was useful, Hermione had long doubted the potion’s overall worth as the go-to substance for traveling incognito, let alone its ethicality.  Her time-turner days sensitized her to the possibility that one might run into the person into whom one had transformed.  And one’s voice didn’t change.  And the time limit was consistently too short, though often unpredictable. 

 _What if,_ Hermione wondered after her second-year incident with Milicent Bulstrode’s cat, _one could choose which features one wanted to take on, and which people could see your “real” face?  Or control how long those features stayed according to a spell’s power?_

These questions had returned after Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s fiasco at the Ministry the previous fall.

When the trio returned to Shell Cottage, Harry and Ron stayed in the sitting room while Hermione took to her bedroom. “Have dinner without me.  Going to bed.  We’ll keep working tomorrow.”

She transfigured her disheveled clothes again into simple black pants with deep pockets and a long sleeve shirt.  _I look like a cat burglar_ , she thought, and added a cloak so that she’d blend into the underbelly of wizarding society well enough.  _Now, what to change?_ She wondered, assessing herself in the mirror.  Her hair was distinctive, so she glamoured it away: she’d appear bald.  And her eyes would be green – _why not?_ _And I’ll make my chin a bit weaker._ She appraised her work.  _Nobody should recognize me, excepting—_

She rolled up her left sleeve in curiosity, and gasped.  Instead of the crabbed lines she’d seen last night, “DUX FEMINA FACTI” burned bright red against the brown skin of her arm.

…

It was only a matter of walking into _The Mad Abbess_ in Knockturn Alley, next to _Bourgin & Burke’s_.  Hermione had been willing to bet that a fool’s hope would send Bellatrix to the macabre antique store in search of any objects powerful enough to destroy a Horcrux –to purchase and destroy all of them herself. _If this fails, I can always drop the glamour and just go back to the Malfoy Manor –and hope to God I don’t have a panic attack._

She needn’t have worried.  The bar itself was crowded, but Hermione saw the one she wanted immediately.  Bellatrix had claimed a table at the back, apparently scaring other patrons within a seven-foot radius off, which was impressive given the establishment’s narrow dimensions.  

Hermione steeled herself.  _Better to go for shock and awe.  That was the plan, right?_   For a moment she stared stupidly at the bared shoulders and neck of the older witch, who was staring at the ceiling with her head tipped back, a bottle of Ogden’s Finest already missing a quarter of its contents. 

She crossed the room, summoning the bottle of firewhiskey.  Bellatrix noticed the wordless magic, but took her time to exit her reverie: the whiskey burning in her stomach gave her the feeling of being embraced, with someone’s head resting just above her belly.  Despite her talent and enthusiasm for violence, she knew when to pick her battles.  Her daydreams were worth more to her than her cred as the meanest thug in Wizarding London.

She heard a familiar voice ask, “Now, what’s one thing you saw today that you don’t think anyone else saw?”

When Bellatrix looked up, her eyes widened.  Her expression was far more fearsome, since she kept quiet.  Hermione took a sip from the bottle and continued, “I saw some Latin I’m afraid I don’t know what to make of.”

 _There are at least five Snatchers at the bar right now_ , Bellatrix thought, looking Undesirable #2 up and down, and guessing a kind of glamour or metamorphagism was involved _._ She stood and closed the distance between herself and Hermione, grabbing her arm roughly.  Some patrons turned to make sure Bellatrix wasn’t moving toward them specifically.  Bellatrix yanked Hermione’s sleeve up.  Her face contorted into a malevolent grin.  “You’re awfully bold, mudblood.”  She took back the firewhiskey and managed a much bigger swig than Hermione had risked.  “See, it’s from one of your filthy muggle poets.  _A woman was the leader of the deed_ , it says.  It could have taken the form of many verses, but you’re correct: only you and I can see it.”  With that, she spun Hermione around, grabbed her other shoulder and frog-marched her out of the establishment, apparating to the Malfoy Manor. 


	3. Against Tenderness

“Polyjuice, mudblood? Bellatrix barked, throwing Hermione onto the thick rug of her chambers. “How’d it feel to have my blood in your veins for the better part of an hour, hmm?”  
Hermione regained her composure from the apparition and physical assault, looking back at Bellatrix, who continued, “And if you think your wit has served some lofty greater good, know this: half the goblin population in Britain’s been exterminated on account of your little heist. I’m sure your lives would have placated the Dark Lord. Potty and the Weasel certainly weren’t responsible for getting the three of you out of there in one piece.”

  
“That’s why I came to you.”

Bellatrix’s eyes widened, “What?”

“I have information that will shorten the war considerably. I can give you Harry Potter.” She tried to stand as she said this, but Bellatrix brandished her wand, indicating that Hermione should stay on the ground.

“You’re offering to give information that I could so easily take, regardless of you will?”

“You could do that. But who’s to say you’ll know what to do with the details you happen to see there? And even if your report to the Dark Lord is completely accurate, you’ll both stand to gain a lot more by maintaining me as an informant instead of rifling through my mind once.”

“Whether you are worth maintenance has yet to be proven,” Bellatrix sneered. “Go on!”

Hermione told Bellatrix what Harry knew –or had guessed—about the Horcruxes, and which ones they’d found, which ones they’d destroyed, and their plans to raid Hogwarts for historical artifacts. She also shared her hypothesis that Harry himself was made into a Horcrux, and made a recommendation: keep him alive as bait.

Bellatrix threw back her head with laughter. “Keep the boy alive! Who put you up to this, sweetheart? You know they sent you on a suicide mission, right?”

“The Dark Lord can’t afford to destroy his own Horcruxes, Bellatrix. And what better hostage to lure Order members into danger and thin their ranks?”

“How about Potter’s favorite mudblood with the sweet brown eyes, hmm?” Hermione turned her head away when Bellatrix knelt beside her, but the witch pinned her to the ground and waited for Hermione to meet her gaze. “You shouldn’t doubt that many would try to rescue you. And I would make all of them die.”

“I’ll not let them make me into a damsel. If the Order learns that you have me, they’ll know it’s because I came of my own free will.” She stared into Bellatrix’s eyes, just centimeters away from her own.

“That’s what brought you here tonight, kitten? Free will?” Hermione’s nose touched Bellatrix’s cheek. Neither witch moved her head away; they could feel each other’s shallow breaths. For a moment, neither of them knew the other had closed her eyes as well. Finally Bellatrix pushed herself away and stood. “Fine. At present I don’t want a third party knowing about our arrangement, so the Unbreakable Vow’s out. I’m trusting you. I want a blood oath, though. It won’t kill you for breaking it, but in case you do, I shall know.”

Hermione drew her sleeves to the elbow and leaned forward to pull a mean-looking stiletto out of her boot. Bellatrix raised her eyebrows. “There are things I’ll not ask you to swear on, Bellatrix.”

“You think you’re in a position to ask me favors, witch?”

“You don’t want to hear them, then?”

“You’re a fool,” Bellatrix retorted, “and you’ll make a fool of me before this is over.”

“I want you to kill Ronald Weasley. Do it whichever way amuses you most, but if the body’s intact when you’re finished, I want to use it for potions ingredients.”

Bellatrix arched an eyebrow, recalling a handful of dark potions and spells, some from beyond the traditions developed in Britain, that required human organs, “Go on.”

“When this is over, no matter what happens, I’ll have to get out of Britain fast. I can manage that, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on the run.”

“False.”

“Excuse me?” Hermione tried not to let her exasperation with her captor-interlocutor show; she hated to be interrupted.

Bellatrix’s forte –and primary mode of operation—was to think on her feet. She explained, “When this is over–and I assume you mean when Potter is dead, which is only the beginning, sweetheart— there will still be plenty of work to be done to stabilize the Wizarding world. You’ll be needed for that. Oh, did the boys at the Order feed you some hashed story about plans for a caste-based society, or perhaps a genocide against muggles? They’re completely without imagination, them.”

“What exactly do you propose?” Hermione leaned back against the nearest wall, hoping to assume something like a nonchalant posture.

“Be my wife.”

“Two witches can do that?”

“You’ve a fair face and a fine mind. Think it over. Our marriage would be the gesture your political action could make good on: the war was never about blood, only authority.”

Hermione was taken a bit aback by this analysis, which, although acute, seemed dishonorable coming from a woman who used blood slurs more often than adverbs. She allowed Bellatrix to continue,“You wouldn’t be the only muggle-born witch in power under the new regime; I’m sure you’ve tired of being tokenized by the Order already. Now, I want to stay relevant to the Dark Lord’s organization as more than his top lieutenant: I want access to soft power.”

As Bellatrix stepped forward, Hermione stepped back. “I need to think this over.”

“What time do you think you have to think?” Her tone mocked Hermione’s caution. “Much as I’d like you to feel secure and autonomous in this decision, your options are limited. If what you’ve told me is correct, we’ll be seeing each other in battle in a mere matter of hours.”

“It’s not just that I’d choose working with you over exile. There are things I’ve scarcely admitted to wanting with you that in marriage—“

“Well?”

“What if I want too much?”

Bellatrix grinned widely. “How’s an eighteen year-old learn to ask such a question? We’ll not need to agree on everything, I’m sure, but I hope you’ll understand that that is a useless concern to have.”

Slowly, Hermione approached Bellatrix and wrapped her arms around her waist. Barely breaking eye contact, she kissed Bellatrix just below the corner of her mouth.

After a few seconds, Bellatrix said, “I’ve not been kissed in sixteen years, Hermione Granger.” It was the first time Bellatrix had spoken Hermione’s name aloud in front of her.

With her left hand, Hermione stroked Bellatrix’s back, the knife hanging idly from her right. Bellatrix stood still.

“I won’t ask what the Weasley boy did to make you want him dead, but I’ll treat you with enough respect to avoid making his mistakes.” She took the stiletto out of Hermione’s hand and used it to pierce the skin of her palm.

“I believe you.”

“If you choose to accept my offer, I’ll do everything I can to honor your trust.” She offered the stiletto and her bleeding palm to Hermione.

“I will relate accurate information to you about Harry Potter’s whereabouts and plans pursuant to the Dark Lord’s goal of capturing him. Then, I’ll marry you.” Hermione cut across her palm and placed it against Bellatrix’s.


	4. The Battle for Hogwarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At this point I think I've abandoned canon characterization of Hermione.

“I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.” 

Hermione felt a deep sympathy for Aberforth, hardly noticing her companions in the room.  She had read about cases of muggle-born children who were abused for not controlling their magic.  In cases that caught the Ministry’s attention and were deemed serious enough for intervention, the abuse was treated as a threatened breach of the International Statute of Secrecy: everyone’s memory was modified, and the child would be monitored for a few months. 

Aberforth continued to stare at his withered hands. “I know my brother could make people feel special, when he wanted to, just by paying attention to them.  Whether he loved you or not isn’t the point, Harry.  He valued selflessness.   In service of the greater good he’d use anyone as fodder.  The ones he loved were the ones he’d delude into thinking that their bloodshed meant something.”

“But you’re still fighting!  You just put your life on the line, saving us back there.”  Ron protested.

“Like I said, a brain fit for a Death Eater.  Listen, son: unlike my brother, I’m not in the trade of putting people out of their misery.  You apparated onto my front doorstep; I’d an ethical obligation not to give the Snatchers the pleasure of rooting you out.”

“We risk just as much leaving town tomorrow morning as we do attempting to enter the castle tonight.  Whether you help us or not, we’re not leaving until we’ve retrieved what we came here for,” Harry said, tossing back the last of his wine. 

Aberforth signaled to the portrait of Ariana.  “You know what to do.”

…

“My Lord.”

“Bellatrix.  Wormtail has informed me that you come with urgent information at this late hour.  What troubles you, my friend?”

“What I have to relate should be but difficult to tell you with the utmost veracity in words, my Lord.  Instead, I invite you to peruse my thoughts, for the events of this evening are foremost in my mind at present.”

“Very well, dear Bellatrix.  I accept your invitation.  _Legilimens!_ ”

Although Bellatrix called up, in order, memories of Hermione’s detainment in Malfoy Manor, her trip to Knockturn Alley, and the pact she sealed barely an hour ago, the Dark Lord’s presence in her mind felt like the affected ease learned by most purebloods.  He might have turned over a paperweight or looked in a drawer while Bellatrix led him through the memory from her chamber. 

“Is there a particular reason why you proposed _marriage_ to her?”  He asked as he quit her mind.

Bellatrix blushed to her neck.  “For the reasons I described to her, I should like her companionship.  I don’t know what the nature of our union shall be, but it seemed the option which offered the security she wanted at the time.”  She had not expected her rationale to sound so equivocal.  The Dark Lord pressed on:

“So you would not dislike being wed to this creature?  She is not hateful to you?”

Bellatrix cast down her gaze.  “She repulses and attracts me in equal measure, My Lord.  If she might she prove useful to your future regime, I would lend her the authority of my name.”

At this, he grinned.  “Well spoken, Bellatrix.  Come now, look me in the eye.  Do you dare feel shame before me, who have known and kept every one of your secrets?”  Bellatrix obeyed.  “Await my orders outside this room.  I shall attempt to send the Potter boy a vision, and lure him to Hogwarts.  If I am successful, we shall lay siege to the castle.”

Though Bellatrix had expected this course of action, she could feel her pulse quicken in excitement for such a battle: huge numbers at her command and a varied battlefield, with restrictions on apparation and the powers of magical creatures at her disposal, she felt the intense intellectual excitement that, two years ago, returned to her when the Dark Lord lured Potter by the same means into the Department of Mysteries. 

 _I know I have a soul_ , she had thought at the time, _I have a soul because I feel it growing_. With that, she had thrown all of herself into raids, strategizing endlessly and fancifully in her free hours.  She understood, as she had not before her time in Azkaban, that souls were real because they could be lost.

Twenty minutes later, her Lord burst through the double doors.  “Come, Bellatrix.   I’ll want you at my right hand in this fight.”  Nagini followed the pair.  “How do you propose we lay siege to the castle, Bellatrix?”

Her eyes gleamed.  “Dementors first.  Clear only the magical restrictions that would impede them, then order them to sweep all but the ground floor of the castle.  They can enter by the Astronomy tower and make their way down.  Once the Order is concentrated on the ground floor, call them off.  The magic maintaining the castles defenses should be sufficiently weakened by that point for us to penetrate them.  Instead, offer mercy in exchange for the Potter boy.”

The Dark Lord smiled, knowing Bellatrix had brainstormed countless ways to storm the castle, and suggested one that would leave a deep psychological scar without shedding much blood.  Although her propensity violence was legendary, it was a testament to her loyalty that she was willing to give up an opportunity for a battle of monstrous proportions for the overall success of his revolution.  “And should they not accept our bargain?”

At this moment, a weasel shimmered into their vision.  It had Hermione’s voice.  “Harry has entered the castle via the portrait on the second floor of The Hog’s Head.  Route should be accessible.”

The Dark Lord made a twisted semblance of a smile.  “Your pet, this Hermione, should prove most useful, Bellatrix.”

Bellatrix bowed solemnly, and answered her Lord’s original question. “Should they not accept our bargain, we will send forty Snatchers through the portrait hole.  If they haven’t cleared the castle of its defenders within twenty minutes, Greyback, Yaxley and I will follow.  After another ten minutes, you’ll have the option to offer peace to the survivors, if you so please, my Lord.”

…

“Lightning has struck.  I repeat: lightning has struck!”  Dean Thomas shouted the ineptly-coded message into the radio receiver. 

In the commotion, and to her own surprise, Hermione was able to conjure a Patronus and direct it to Bellatrix.  With Snape’s summons, Dumbledore’s Army turned its attention, predictably, toward Harry. 

“From what I’ve heard about the Carrows, you’ll receive the same treatment whether you all go down to the Great Hall or not.  For the time being, we can use this space as the site of our resistance, and reach out to sympathizers via wireless—“

“And what about the students who don’t have a wireless?  What about the second-years who’ve just been trained in Unforgiveables?  You’ll be going up against child soldiers, or at least throwing spells unscrupulously in their direction.”

This caught a few of the D.A. members’ attention. 

“You’ve got a better idea, then?”  Seamus Finnegan challenged.

Hermione levelled a piercing glare in his direction.  “Actually, I do.  If Snape knows Harry is here, he’ll probably notify Voldemort.  Some of you are of age; the rest of the student body has no business playing war.  We need to get students out, and members of the Order of the Phoenix in.  Where’s McGonagall?”

…

Snape attempted to keep students in the Great Hall after Harry revealed himself and accused Snape of Dumbledore’s murder.  Although his mental discipline strengthened his wandwork considerably, McGonagall was simply better-versed than he in violent spells, and a more experienced dueler.  Their fight lasted less than a minute; for the second time in as many years, the carefully reconstructed glass window at the head of the hall was shattered as Snape flew through it to relative safety.

Her first action as _de facto_ headmistress of Hogwarts was to order an evacuation of “all students, except official members of the Order of the Phoenix;” she levelled a deadly glare at the crowd of Gryffindor seventh years already brandishing their wands.

“But Professor McGonagall, some of them are of age!  We need more wands if we’re to fight off Death Eaters.”

McGonagall rounded on Harry.  “If you pretend to know what’s best for the students of this school, Mister Potter, you should remember that you are currently neither a student nor a professor at Hogwarts, and have risked more lives than your own by coming here tonight.”

Adrenaline rushed through her system.  Hermione noticed her favorite professor still gripped her wand tightly, as if in anticipation of attack.  She stepped in front of Harry, and approached the headmistress.  “Professor McGonagall.  Send a patronus to Hagrid.  If he’s hiding in the mountains, he might be able to hide students in the Forbidden Forest for a time.”

McGonagall’s frown eased a bit.  “I’ve always envied that man’s maternal instincts.” She turned to the rest of the assembled student body and ordered, “Prefects: escort your houses to the Game Keeper’s cabin.  Wait for him there.  He will supervise your evacuation from the school grounds.”

Several students groaned, but most of them looked resigned.  Someone told Seamus Finnegan to “shut the fuck up,” but Seamus, red in the face, appeared not to have heard.

“Miss Granger.”

“Yes, Professor McGonagall?”

“As I will be preparing the school’s magical defenses and coordinating the Order of the Phoenix’s battle agenda, I must entrust an –ah—indelicate task to you.”

“Certainly, Professor.”

“You may have heard about the Carrow siblings’ treatment of students this year?”

“And seen, yes.”

McGonagall nodded grimly.  “They’re in the dungeons.  Use whatever means necessary, so long as you’re back in the Great Hall in half an hour.” 

Hermione made to exit, but turned again.  “Professor, protect the castle.  You are an authority in the magical world as well as in the Order.  Provided we buy enough time, we may be able to turn this into a parlay instead of a battle.”

McGonagall scrutinized her former student for a moment.  Long had she worried that Harry and Ron’s influence would hinder her growth.  In a year’s absence, Minerva had been able to imagine Hermione unchanged by war, while she watched children far younger than she grow dark.  _You have no idea how much hope I have for you_ , she wanted to say.  Instead, she said, “I think we understand each other,” and began to rouse the soldiers’ statues around the castle’s entrance.

…

Hermione wasn’t sure whether the Carrows were merely siblings or lovers as well when she entered the dungeons.  Never had the chains Filch bragged about having used on children in his youth been mounted to the walls, not while Snape occupied the dungeons.  Now, all manner of strap and board and metal fastening lined the perimeter of the Carrows’ quarters.

 _At least_ , she noted, _they don’t share the same bed_.  That the two had not awoken for Snape’s summons or yet felt the burn of their Dark Marks surprised Hermione, who easily cast body binds over the siblings.  They didn’t even sleep with their wands on them!  Hermione levitated the defenseless Carrows up the winding staircase, toward the astronomy tower. 

 _Is this cowardly?_   She wondered, casting an additional _Incarcerus_ on the famed disciplinarians, mounting their stiff bodies to the safety railings.  _It’s not like I’m pushing them off the roof, after all._  

She tested the strength of her bonds.  “I imagine the two of you are in a great deal of pain right now.”  The ropes she’d conjured were already turning the flesh around Amycus’ wrists an impressive shade of maroon.  She tutted at this.  “You’ll need to have that amputated if you stay bound for much longer.”  She slapped his hand.  “But you’re still warm.  You’ve still a while left before any major decisions have to be made.

“Now, which is worse,” she continued, “taking orders from a mudblood for the rest of your lives, or having your soul sucked out?  If you survive the night, it’s likely one of the two will happen.  I know the Order’s not above that kind of brutality.  It’s why if they lose, you’ll still have to answer to me.

“It’s a tough choice, I’ll admit.  Luckily, I don’t think you deserve a say in the matter, so you’ll have nothing on your conscience to regret –except for torturing children.”  She pointed to the black lake, just beyond the magical barrier being erected by members of the Order.

“It’s hard to make them out from here, but I’ll wager you already know those are dementors.  Now, if I’ve guessed correctly, they’ll take the castle from the top floor down, which is lucky for you.  Less time to fret and all.” 

When she descended the stairs, her heart pounded like it hadn’t since Bellatrix had her pinned to the Malfoys’ living room floor.  Was it at odds with her values, leaving two unscrupulous sadists to have their souls sucked out?  She paused to collect her bearings, grounding herself with one deep breath. 

…

Almost as soon as the students reached the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid arrived.  “Where’s your dog,” asked a third-year Hufflepuff.

“Follow me, all of yeh,” was all Hagrid would say.

Nobody made much of a fuss when Draco, Pansy, Vincent and Blaise broke off from the main group of students.  It was generally understood that wherever they went, the four of them weren’t likely to find safety.

...

The floor cracked from the heat of Molly and Bellatrix’s spells.  At the sound of buckling sandstone, Hermione ran into the Great Hall.  The two witches continued fighting, while Ginny looked on, close enough to the duel to be gravely injured.  _Has she gone into shock?_ wondered Hermione.

Bellatrix appeared uninterested in the formalities of dueling; instead of trading curses one for one, she would fire between two and four in rapid succession before throwing up a shield.  She was clearly not accustomed to her opponents lasting more than a couple of minutes.  Molly traded blows with a keen, methodical coolness that contrasted the furious expression on her face. 

Hermione enjoyed watching Bellatrix scream between shots. Clearly, she affected a battle persona calculated to intimidate her opponents. Still, if one of the witches didn’t fail soon, the structural integrity of the Great Hall might be compromised, threatening more lives than their own.  Not wanting to draw attention as a combatant, Hermione pressed her back against a shattered and overturned table, aimed her wand at Ginny, and pronounced the curse, “ _Imperio_ ”.

When Ginny opened her mouth an ungodly sound came from it, a screech high and loud enough to pierce the noise of the battle.  Her eyes were wide and glazed from the Imperious Curse, but combined with the wrenched expression of her jaw the passive gaze looked more like mortal terror. 

In the moment Molly paused, realizing that the shrieking came from her daughter, Bellatrix shouted, “ _Lactobacillus!_ ”

Molly’s attention was drawn back into the fight, but as she raised her wand to curse Bellatrix, her face reddened unnaturally.  She looked down at her hands, which were also a bright, uniform red.  In a few seconds, it was clear that she was not flushed.  Instead, her skin was disappearing; it was as if she were covered in acid. 

Hermione released Ginny from the Imperious, and hit her with a body-bind.  Molly fired a wordless hex at Bellatrix, who easily deflected it.  In true form, she unabashedly enjoyed watching the effect of her spell on Molly, who only began to shriek after she crumpled to the floor. 

Bellatrix rounded on Hermione.  _She’ll fucking get killed, just standing there_.  Hermione let Bellatrix drag her at a run into the nearest corner and raise a weak shield around the two of them.  It was to conserve her energy, not out of any protective instinct, that she pressed the young witch into the wall. “You’ll have to tell me how you made her scream like that, my—“ she stopped short.  “Hermione.”

The heat that her duel with Molly generated had covered Bellatrix in sweat.  The moisture pooled in her collarbone.  _Say it again_.  “Same,” Hermione stammered, pressing her lips to the base of her neck.  While she ordinarily would have felt too callow, too anxious to indulge this desire, hours of firing curses and sprinting had replaced her curiosity about Bellatrix’s person into an ineffable and total need.

 _No, I don’t think I should dislike being wed to this creature, not at all,_ thought Bellatrix, tilting her head back.  Her left hand tangled in Hermione’s hair, guiding the woman to where she craved contact. 

Suddenly, she yanked Hermione’s head back.  “Battle lust.  We shan’t do this now.”  She put some distance between their bodies. “Stay alive for the next couple of hours.  Then we’ll have the entire castle at our disposal.”

Hermione fired a slicing hex over Bellatrix’s shoulder at Professor Flitwick, who had tried to curse Bellatrix while her back was turned.  “Count on it,” Hermione replied as Flitwick fell. 

…

It was clear the Order was outnumbered.  The last of the enchanted shield had fallen, allowing the trolls, acromantulae, werewolves, remaining Snatchers, and marked Death Eaters to take formation around the castle’s main entrance.

Harry could see them coming.  Before the Dark Lord extended his final offer of clemency to the few remaining Order members, he exited the castle with his hands raised. 

Immediately several Snatchers sent stunning spells at him.  The Dark Lord cast a powerful protecting charm around the boy, while Bellatrix executed the disobedient wizards with a simple exploding heart spell. _How festive!_ she thought to herself.

The Dark Lord looked Harry in the eye, pleased by the defiance he saw there.  He saw in that look a kind of innocence, and knew it would be gone within a few months of captivity.  Almost fondly, he stroked the boy’s face.  “It is over, Harry Potter.”

He turned to the remaining loyal members of the Order.  “I refuse to kill any more of you in battle.  I have won the castle.  I have won the boy.  I have won the day.  Any of you who wish to build a magical society that embraces traditions from beyond the British Isles, beyond human experiences, and transcends muggle prejudices shall be given the resources to do so –under my rule.

“I give the rest of you twelve hours to leave this country.  Henceforth you will be fugitives here.  Those who wish to pledge their loyalty to me may do so now.”

McGonagall remembered Hermione’s words.  She was the first to pledge her loyalty, and several followed her.  Hestia Jones wanted to help bury the dead, mourn with her community; she followed.  Tonks wanted to raise her son, bury her husband.  Andromeda wondered if she could have her family –her sisters—back.  Hermione walked directly to Bellatrix, and took her hand. 

Ron was appalled.  “Bloody hell, Hermione!”

Neville grabbed his arm, noticing Ron was about to raise his wand.  They led the Order’s faithful through the parted Death Eater ranks.

…

“Narcissa vouched for me, but plenty of others saw us fighting together, and at the end.  Nobody gave me any trouble.”  Said Hermione, sitting on the bed that once had been hers. 

“It felt good.  Fighting with you.  You’re very deliberate in your casting.”

Hermione blushed.  It was refreshing to be complimented without additional effusive remarks.  “To put it succinctly, I think I thrive on your energy.”  She paused.  “You put some spells to use I’d only read about.  And read furtively, at that.”

Bellatrix walked to the window.  It was nice, having these in a dormitory, she supposed.  _Glad I didn’t have the distraction, growing up_.  Nearsighted, the grounds that hadn’t been reduced to ruins appeared to her as green and blue bucolic blurs.  “About our arrangement, Hermione.”

The younger witch hadn’t expected the topic to be broached so soon, and tried not to let her surprise show.  “Yes, that.”

“I’d imagined it would be a political alliance only, when I suggested it.  Like most pureblood marriages,” she smiled ruefully, “You get me access to Ministry resources, information, all that, and I make sure you’re safe enough to keep doing so.”

Hermione nodded.

“But that’s just my vision.”

“Oh.”

 _Why do I feel so flustered?_ Bellatrix moved to the bed opposite Hermione’s and sat down.  “Sometime we should talk about what you’d like from our arrangement.”

Hermione was out of her depth.  She wanted to oafishly repeat herself: _Oh_.  As in, _I didn’t know you could have conversations about these things_. 

Bellatrix stared at the silent woman.  “ _Well?_ ”  Her voice was much louder than she meant it to be.  She looked at the ceiling.  “Sorry,” she muttered.

“Yes.  I’d be very interested in having that conversation.  At the moment all I can think of is wanting to learn about the magic you used today, which isn’t much.  But once we’re both rested, yes.  Do you know what you’ll be up to tomorrow?”

Bellatrix shrugged.  “Awaiting orders at my sister’s house.  Confirming whether the Weasley boy is in the country.  Maybe moving into my ex’s place.”

“If it’s convenient I could visit you in the afternoon.”

“Of course.  Yes, that would work.  No problem.  You plan to stay here, then?”

Hermione beamed.  “I’ve all of Gryffindor house to myself, it seems.”

“Yes, it’s quite the pad.  Listen: it would put my mind at ease if you’d take extra precautions for the next night or two while you’re here.”

Hermione was aware that it was truly ridiculous to have Bellatrix Lestrange encourage her to take precautions of any kind, but it was a far cry from having an incompetent teenage boy actively interfering with her personal life in the name of safety.  “Protective enchantments before bed have become a bit of a compulsive habit for me, really.  And then there’s also the Fat Lady.”

Bellatrix toyed with the duvet near her knee.  “About that. Narcissa told me you were here, and I gave that portrait fair warning…”

Hermione realized how Bellatrix entered the dormitory.  “She never moves without the password.”

“I’ll arrange for a new entrance to be made.”  At that moment Bellatrix wished she’d affected her unapologetically berserk persona.

 _But I don’t want to be that way around her_ , she thought.

“Right.  It should be fine.  I can also make a pretty strong barricade in the meantime.”  Hermione said, brightly.  _A magically reinforced pile of overstuffed furniture?  What on earth have I wanted more these past few months?_

“You could also stay over at my sister’s place.”  Bellatrix noticed Hermione’s discomfort with the idea.

“With you?”

“I know I’ve made this decision weird, having compromised your common room’s safety and all.”

Hermione thought a moment.  “Do you remember how I was worried I’d want too much?  When we made our oath?”

Bellatrix nodded, attempting to maintain a neutral facial expression.

“I’d rather have a conversation about the boundaries of our arrangement before we share a –well…”

“A roof?”  Bellatrix suggested, raising an eyebrow.

“Before sharing a roof,” Hermione agreed.  “You’re very respectful of my autonomy.  I like that.”

Bellatrix let out a bark of laughter.  “Who, me?  Well, I kill for fun and torture people, but I do try to be half decent to the people I—” she paused, “the people I’m not, ah, torturing.”

The two women traded stares until Hermione’s face contorted with laughter.  “That’s terrible!”  Her hand covered her mouth, doing little to stifle her mirth.

“I can’t say I didn’t mean it,” Bellatrix giggled.  “But seriously: you’re a grown woman.  If someone tries to boss you around without your permission, set them on fire.”

Hermione shot Bellatrix a quizzical look.  “I’ll keep that in mind, for sure.”

The sun was setting already.  Bellatrix rose from the bed.  “Rest now.”

Hermione stood anyway.  “Tomorrow, Malfoy Manor, 2 PM?” 

“I’ll meet you outside the gates.”

Hermione suspected the gates would be enchanted to keep people out according to their blood purity.  “Yes.” 

The two witches stood a foot apart.  _Do we really need to be this close?_   Bellatrix wondered, checking her breathing.

“May I hug y--?”

“Yes.”  Bellatrix replied.

 


	5. Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vignettes from the first night after the Battle of Hogwarts. Expands story's focus to other plots than Bellamione. Introducing an OFC. Relatively short.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My profuse apologies for not posting so many months. I moved kind of abruptly to a city whose name rhymes with Quilladelphia in August. I have written chapters subsequent to this one, but decided to write this transitional piece. The story could definitely end at Chapter Four, but your encouragement kept me going. No more extended hiatuses until this story is over, over, over.

Minerva McGonagall stayed in her usual quarters that night, unwilling to face a public of dead white men, which she knew would await her in the Headmaster’s Office.  In her tartan nightgown, she sat up at her desk, attempting an arithmantic evaluation of wizarding Britain’s political fate. 

It took her an hour to craft a rudimentary one, _Will terrorism against muggles and muggle-borns continue_ , entering her value-free observations about the battle’s turnout.  She struggled to plot the line of probability more than a week into the future. 

 _Too many variables_ , she yawned.  The bright silver line of her calculation dropped like a spider letting itself down from a branch.  She rasped her fingers against the surface of her desk from right pinky to left.

In the past year she had slept soundly once or twice a week.  The castle’s air oppressed her no matter how cold the weather was now that Albus was gone.  Regardless of the dangers involved, she had spent most of her nights wandering the castle as a cat.  It was easier to get lost in the wonder of a new perspective, return to her rooms early in the morning and, exhausted, curl her entire body on top of her pillow for a few hours.

Not to mention that she was more gregarious as a cat.

…

“Do you want to talk about what happened today?”

Draco shook his head.  “You?”

“I think I’ll be ready in a day or two.”

“Same.”

“Hungry?”

“No.”

“I asked Oriane to come.  We could brew some mugwort tea and watch the stars, if you like.”

He palmed one of his tears away.  “Another night.  No.  I want to shower.  Will you two want privacy?”

“No, Draco. Wake us if you want company.”  Narcissa pulled her son close, resting her chin on his shoulder. 

“Do you know when Father will be back?”

“Several days, maybe a week.”  She did not know.

They held each other a few seconds longer.  Draco pulled himself away with a weak smile.  “Stars tomorrow night, then?  The three of us?”

…

Hermione didn’t remember falling into bed, but woke on top of the covers in her dirty clothes. It was still dark in the room, but the sky outside the window was a light purple.  She looked around the room, remembering how she would wake early during exam season (between early February and May) and see her housemates bundled in these same beds. 

 _What if I’ve made an awful mistake?_ Her breath caught in her throat.  _What if death would have been better than what comes next?  What comes next?_

She grabbed a pillow and held it.  “It’s out of my control.  This is not an exam.”  She repeated until her breathing eased again.

…

It was so much easier, taking this final staircase as a cat.  She bounded through the trapdoor.

Sibyl was burning a smudge stick by the window: sage, and something else Minerva couldn’t place.  Swaying, but not the way she did with cooking sherry in her veins.   Had there been a moon that night, she would have looked lyrical.  In the light of the few sputtering candles on the room’s perimeter, her dance was one of the few things in the world Minerva would have described as eerie-looking. 

She stopped when she felt the cat brush against her legs.  “Darling animal.” She set the smudge stick in a giant shell on her windowsill.  “I shall not pretend to have seen you coming.”

…

“Sometimes I wonder whether he feels he knows my body as intimately as I do his.”

Oriane shook her head.  “Surely not.  Your relationship is somewhat unique, but don’t all children love their parents to the extent that they feel separate from them?”

Narcissa frowned.  “That’s not quite what I meant.  There’s a possessiveness I experience with him, physically.  It’s not affirming of his personhood, like love.  I almost forget he’s not inside me.  There’s a mole on the back of his neck that surprises me each time I hug him.  My mind forgets but my hands remember and find it every time.”

Oriane clasped her hands around her knees.  “It’s a charming thing.”

Narcissa slithered closer to Oriane. “You’re distant tonight.  Should I talk about something else?”

Oriane closed her eyes.  “I was thinking that my relationship with my father was just the opposite of what you described: the hands forget and the mind remembers.”  She shook her head.  “I’m in a difficult mood.  What you have to say is beautiful, but I think I’d hear you better another time.”

Narcissa nodded.  “Unless you’ve something pressing to say, let’s take inventory?” 

“I’d like that. On your back, dear.  Would you like a pillow?”

“I’d rather be flat this time.  Thank you.”

Oriane seated herself at Narcissa’s feet, cleared her head, and pressed her palms against Narcissa’s bare soles.  Had someone asked, Narcissa would have guessed Oriane held that position, breathing slowly, for a whole five minutes.  Oriane would have been annoyed with such a question.  She moved her hands behind Narcissa’s ankles only when she felt her friend’s body relax.  To her calves, kneecaps.  Thighs.  Pubic mound.  Solar plexus.  Ribs.  Elbows.  Shoulders.  Head. 

…

So many of her dreams led up this long, narrow staircase.  Bellatrix climbed it always imagining anything other than the familiar green-lit room behind the weightless door, hidden completely from sight in the unlit stairwell.

Sometimes she would be on an errand that would require her to mount the stairs.  Sometimes she would be overcome with guilt for the humanlike groaning the stairs made under her tread.  Sometimes she would anticipate, in the most abstract sense, an attack waiting behind the door for her.  Sometimes she decided the only way to survive the attack would be to put up no defense; she knew she could weather anything.   

The room was always small and laid out in the shape of the letter _L_.  It reminded her of a guest bedroom.  She walked its length and turned right to find a high stool draped with a white cloth.  On top was a severed human head that made prophesies she never remembered after she woke. 

The sun was already up.  She still felt tired from the battle, so tired her face felt numb.   Her Dark Mark was cool, no warmer than the rest of her skin.  The lines had been cold as a seam of metal most of the time she was in Azkaban, biting into the surrounding flesh.  Like any other part of her body, the Mark felt both entirely ordinary and inexplicable now. 

...

 _My Harry.  A small piece of my soul, walking around outside myself._ The Dark Lord thought to himself.  _Now I understand._  

…

 


	6. Tea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To quote my housemate's mug, "it's motherfucking tea time."  
> Lots of women talking about their relationships.

…

Without a word, Bellatrix extended her arm through Narcissa’s gate for Hermione to take, who, standing on the outside, looked more doubtful than she intended to.  The last –the only other—time she had been here, she and her friends had been in mortal peril.  The grin Bellatrix wore as she took Hermione’s hand didn’t help, either.

Having only one set of clothes with her at Hogwarts, Hermione had cleaned them with a charm and transfigured her ragged garments into black pants and a gray short-sleeved shirt.

Bellatrix’s grin erupted into cackling when Hermione was on her side of the fence: its enchantments had undone Hermione’s transfiguration.  “Every time!  You wouldn’t believe what ludicrous disguises people walk through this gate wearing.  It’s my favorite part of entertaining at my sister’s house.  Come on.”  She pulled Hermione along the path before she could change her clothes into something presentable.  “You look all right in anything.”

When last Hermione had stepped into the manor, the entrance hall had been as bare of furniture as a fraternity house on a Friday night.  Already an elf was scurrying between high octagonal endtables and ginger-colored leather armchairs.

“Would you be comfortable discussing this in my room?  Narcissa likes for Bentley to decorate without interruptions –part of his creative process or some other hogwash.”

Bentley was the first house-elf Hermione would have described as “barrel-chested”.  He wore a black and brown striped romper, had a pronounced underbite and bulging eyes.  When he turned to face the two witches, he smiled by simply lowering his jaw and tilting his head, letting his tongue hang out.

“Don’t ask me.  Narcissa likes him,” Bellatrix muttered.  Not waiting for an answer, she moved toward the staircase.

…

Minerva spent many of her nights as a cat, and was accustomed to awakening as one among her own bedclothes.  Many mornings she transformed back into her human form, wondering why she bothered changing into her tartan nightgown the night before. 

This was not such a morning.  She lay still without opening her eyes for several minutes, enjoying the warmth against which she had curled her body, both rising and falling slowly.  _Wait._

She lifted her head gently and opened her eyes.  She was in Sybill Trelawney’s lap, curled in her winged armchair.

As gently as possible, she stretched onto the floor, loosening the muscles of her stomach enough to pad as quickly as possible back to her quarters.  She was almost to the trapdoor when she heard Sybill call tentatively, “May I make you some tea?”

…

“This is one of the first situations I've been in in which the most hedonistic option available to me is also a utilitarian one.”

Bellatrix rolled her eyes.  “I doubt that, Granger.  I suppose you’re like this all the time?”

“To be perfectly honest, I’m stalling.” Hermione said this staring at the wall just behind Bellatrix’s head

“That’s promising.”  Bellatrix crossed her legs.  “Out with it, then!”

“Well, I don’t foresee leaving –divorcing—you being an option, even if I wanted to.  And while we’re together I don’t intend to pine after you or pretend I don’t have feelings for you.”  She cleared her throat.  “I want a romantic relationship with you.  And a physical one.”  She waited for Bellatrix to respond, who didn’t move a muscle, though the lights in the room darkened suddenly and were just as rapidly restored.  When Hermione crooked an eyebrow, recovering enough audacity to look Bellatrix in the eye again, Bellatrix nodded several times and whispered, “Fine.”

There was a long, lumbering silence between them.

“I’m impressed with how calmly you’ve handled this week’s events.”

“I’m uneasy.  I keep waiting for grief or remorse to hit me.  It hasn’t.”

“It will.”  Bellatrix took her turn to look at the wall behind Hermione’s head.  “It’s no use worrying over it.  You’ll be fine until it does, and then you’ll be useless for as long as your mind needs to recover.”

Hermione nodded.  Bellatrix continued, “You might not trust me enough and I’ll be at the Dark Lord’s disposal any hour of the day or night, but if you want company when it happens, just owl.”

Hermione folded her arms across her chest and looked at her lap.  “I don’t trust you.  And I can’t pretend to understand you. But I trust the way I feel when you’re nearby, and I want to keep feeling that way.”

Bellatrix hung her head.

“I’m sorry.  We have too fraught a history to unpack now, and I’m something you’ve professed to hate.  I couldn’t—Someday we might trust each other.”

“You,” Bellatrix felt her voice catch in her throat.  _Mighty Circe how has a girl made me so helpless?_   “You shouldn’t be sorry.  I know I will never live up to the feeling you speak of.  I have no idea how to honor it.” 

Hermione watched Bellatrix dig her fingernails into the back of her own hand. 

…

Sybill Trelawney was as aggressively eccentric a witch as Minerva had met, yet offering a cat tea was beyond her repertoire of kooky behaviors.  She padded back toward the witch, who was stretching her arms and neck, looking at the ceiling.  “No cream, no sugar, I know.”

Minerva transformed back into her human form to more emphatically roll her eyes.  “How long have you known?”

“That the cat who visited my chambers every few nights was my colleague?  You may not believe in the Sight, but I do have eyes, Minerva.  Yours are the same in your human and cat forms.”

“You mean the markings that resemble my glasses, I suppose.”

Sybill looked puzzled.  “What markings?  No, I meant their color.  Nobody has eyes that green.”

Minerva shrugged her shoulders, feeling only tightness there.

“Nobody but you, of course” Sybill clarified, rising and arranging the cedar planks for her day’s fire with her wand.  Minerva was impressed when the teakettle rose, filled, and hovered above the fire, now blazing, and the herbs drying in the corner began braiding themselves into new smudge sticks.  She had not witnessed Sybill’s wandwork before, and had suspected she was more of a Squib than a Seer.  “Was I wrong?”

Minerva shook herself. “Excuse me, what?”

“About your tea.  No cream, no sugar?”

…

 “Will you teach me how to fight?”

“What –I mean, I’d be delighted, but you already know how to fight.”

“Only a couple dozen jinxes.  You know how little is taught at Hogwarts.  Anyway, it may not have much practical use once my skills have had time to improve, but it’s one thing I could never teach myself from a book.”

“Would you prefer weekly lessons, or for me to jump you from time to time and give you pointers afterward?”

Hermione blushed.  “Sorry, I--”

“What?” Bellatrix interrupted.

“Are you flirting with me?”

“No.”

Another silence passed.

“What if I wanted you to?”

“To flirt with you?”

“And jump me and give me pointers afterward.”

Bellatrix’s cool demeanor eased a little.  She smirked.  “I’m glad you asked.  I’m rather,” she paused, “out of practice, however.  And with witches my experience is limited.”

“Perhaps instead of pointers we could just talk about our bodies and preferences.”

“You’re so earnest!” Bellatrix exclaimed.  “Yes.  I would like that.  What else do you propose?”

“Please don’t explain the scar you gave me until I ask you to.”

“Oh.  Might I know why not?”

“Yes.  I want to research it myself, and define a personal meaning for it.”

Bellatrix felt her chest swell with pride –in herself or in the girl, she wasn’t sure.  “I’ll respect that.”

“Thank you.  This has gone well.  Do you usually have conversations like this: conversations about boundaries, I mean?”

“No, never. You?”

“Never before.”

“Come.  I need to unwind, and would like to bring you with me.  Take my arm.”

Hermione obeyed, casually grasping Bellatrix’s bicep instead of the offered wrist.  She didn’t see Bellatrix smile.

…

“No, you weren’t wrong.”  Minerva replied, transfiguring one of the room’s many poufs into an armchair. 

Sybill smiled. “That is well.  I have no cream or sugar.” 

The kettle began to sing.  Sybill levitated a cup and saucer to Minerva. When they took their seats, both drank their tea in silence.  When she was at her dregs, Minerva spoke up.  “I was unable to calculate the probability of an end to terrorism against Muggles and Muggle-borns arithmantically last night.”

Instead of the knowing nod she’d dreaded, Sybill frowned sympathetically.  “Septima?”

“Is at St. Mungo’s.  They believe she was attacked by several dementors.  Her soul is intact, but she might not –“ she trailed off.  “I expect the usual treatments of sunlight, chocolate, iron, and cheering charms will restore her.” 

“Do you really?”  Sybill asked, ever the pessimist.

“Yes.”  Minerva said curtly. 

“But your uncertainties about the future remain.”

Minerva met Sybill’s gaze.  She barely nodded.  The younger witch continued.  “there are almost as many ways to read the signs of the future as there are signs of the future.” 

Such an admission puzzled Minerva.  “Then what is the value of reading signs, Sybill?”

Sybill was glad, for the first time in years, to hear her name aloud.  “Self-confidence comes from it.  And an ability to discern weaker readings, strengthened intuition and” she waggled her eyebrows, “other forms of occult knowledge.”

Minerva barked a bitter laugh, and looked away.  “Why didn’t you address me as a woman sooner?”

Sybill’s eyes widened.  “Is it not obvious to you, Minerva?”

The headmistress shook her head. 

“I thought you wouldn’t return if you knew I knew.”

“What changed?”

“I wanted to drink tea with you.”  Sybill replied matter of factly.

...

When they landed, they both staggered. Hermione heard Bellatrix give a shout of victory, but did not see her face.  It had been early afternoon in the Malfoys’ garden; here, it was night-time.

“ _Lumos._ ”

“Cut that out.  Look at the sky.”

“Oh – _Nox!_ ”

Bellatrix could make out Hermione’s profile when she tilted her head back.  There were no lights for miles –for lightyears, it would seem—there were only stars.

While they stood in silence, Hermione took Bellatrix’s hand in hers.  Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness; now she could see Bellatrix make a lopsided smile.  

“Let’s keep looking.”  She lay down on the hard ground, taking energy from the earth.  The night was cool, but far from chilly. 

Hermione brought herself down to Bellatrix’s side.  “Where are we?”

“Taklamakan Desert.  China.”

…

The sun was setting when Bellatrix and Hermione returned to the Malfoy manor.  Bentley was outside, spreading fabric as thin as distraction on the grass.  Hermione watched it flutter to the ground through the tall drawing room windows. 

“Will you stay for tea, Miss Granger?”  An unfamiliar voice asked. 

It was Narcissa who spoke.  She stood behind a woman who was dehydrating a pile of mugwort stems that lay on her lap with her wand.  She put aside the stem in her hand, which had apparently captivated her whole attention, when Narcissa spoke, and turned her gaze upon Hermione.

“Tea, Madame Malfoy?” It was by no stretch of the imagination mid-afternoon. 

“Yes, Miss Granger.  Are you acquainted with mugwort?”

“I’ve only read that it is an ingredient in some sleeping potions, but I have never used it before.”

The witch in front of Narcissa smiled up at Hermione.  “You read widely, then.  Unless I am mistaken, Professor Dumbledore never lifted the ban on the study of abortifacients before his death?”

Hermione frowned at this.  “I was unaware of such a ban ever having been in place, actually.”

Bellatrix and Narcissa both laughed out loud at this.  It was even more surprising to hear the full-bellied sound come from the blond witch, whose relatively reserved manners Hermione had never associated with laughter.

“Hermione, this is Oriane Podmore.  Oriane, Hermione Granger.”  Narcissa introduced the witches, levitating the pile of mugwort stems so Oriane could stand. 

“Please do stay, Hermione,” Bellatrix whispered close behind her, “Or my sister and Oriane will be insufferable.” 

Hermione watched the two witches smile at each other, Narcissa stripping the mugwort stems of their leaves while Oriane levitated them into separate bowls.  “I’d love to.”


	7. Where She Goes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two deaths. An Ann Peebles song. Some dream content lifted from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

They lay down in a circle, feet out, with the pot of mugwort tea in the center.

The conversation died.  Slowly, Bellatrix looks toward Hermione. _What if she’s really like other mudbloods, happy to learn and practice the magic she’s been gifted with-- and ready to betray and expose the wizarding world?  What if she displeases the Dark Lord?  She’s not incompetent, but she might use that smart mouth of hers like a suicide bomb in the right forum.  Or she might fall for some gorgeous boy or, who knows, some witch, and of course I would duel them to kill for appearances’ sake, but then she might never come back to me. What if she wants a baby?  Do I want a baby?  And if I end up really loving –no, really_ want _ing her, anyone can use it against me…_

Bellatrix winced at these thoughts, beginning to dislike what the train of her thought suggested about her own feelings more than the uncertainties it acknowledged.  _What if she snores? What if I snore? I probably snore._  

“He’s calling,” she explained as she stood stiffly and apparated away.

Narcissa strained against the tense silence Bellatrix left behind.  The evening might have gone worse, much worse, but dealing with the young woman who had been left confused in their midst presented challenges more delicate than if Bellatrix had left her in the same position, unconscious and bloodied.

Hermione didn’t hear Draco leave.

“It’s not uncommon for Bellatrix to depart suddenly,” Narcissa explained. “It is rarely the Dark Lord who calls her away.”

Hermione was less comforted by this information as she contemplated it.  “Do you have any idea where she goes?”

“She could be in the house, or on a raft and miles up some tributary in Brazil.  No place but here is particularly unlikely.”

Oriane reached for Narcissa’s hand in the dark.  They all lay in silence again until Hermione broke it.  “Is it possible to make an educated guess, based on Bellatrix’s mood, whether Vo—the Dark Lord has called her?”

“Yes,” Narcissa replied.

…

Harry felt a warm wind blowing around him, like he was in the center of a slow-moving, immaculately clean tornado.  Instead of his own breathing, he heard the Dark Lord’s slow, hoarse breaths coming from inside himself, from everywhere else.  He turned around, knowing he would see his enemy there.  The Dark Lord’s eyes were closed, and his arms and legs were bare.  A knife was moving without the guidance of any visible hand, making long, brutally quick incisions across the Dark Lord’s limbs.  They did not bleed, and the Dark Lord smiled beatifically.  Harry heard the Dark Lord speak his name, and woke.

…

Making temporary headquarters at Hogwarts was judged by most to be a shrewd move. The anti-apparation wards on the school allowed for thorough screening of all visitors. The greatest danger was in making a graceful entrance to school grounds.  Theoretically, members of the resistance were banished.  In practice, it would be a relatively low-risk endeavor to pick off unprotected Death Eaters one by one as they apparated into the Forbidden Forest. 

Bellatrix had always wanted to duel there, anyway.  The trees provided partial cover –just enough to make the fight really sporting, she had once explained to a nonplussed group of Slytherins in her sixth year.

 _Not even a smidgen of a vengeful ambush?_   Bellatrix wondered, peering over her shoulder from time to time.  Sneak attacks, to her mind, were as good as human sacrifices at the altar of her infamy.  She had a difficult time not considering the peace and quiet of her journey to the castle as a personal slight.

The Dark Lord had been able to decompress after capturing Harry.  He slept for four whole hours, dispelling rumors within his inner circle that he did not sleep at all.  In the same part of the dungeon that the Dark Lord made into his personal quarters, cordoned off by protective enchantments, Harry slept through a round of Armadillo Bile Mixture, burn-healing paste and blood replenishing potion. 

Harry had been under for twenty-four hours when Bellatrix arrived.  The remaining twenty hours of that day, the Dark Lord had received his closest followers for meetings, brewed gallons of calming draught for Harry, stared at Harry, and trained Nagini –with some success—to guard the boy. After receiving the young Spencer Overman for a report on the presence of rebel forces near Manchester, he ordered his informant to hex Harry.  Before the curse left his mouth, Nagini struck him down. 

The Dark Lord was watching Harry sleep when Bellatrix arrived.  She even saw, or thought she saw, him stroke the air just above Harry’s head.  _An incantation, maybe_ , she thought before realizing how little envy she felt for Harry at that moment.  The Dark Lord was the only man she loved completely – _well, only human being_ , she thought, remembering the tales he told her of transforming from Tom Marvolo Riddle into something far more than a man.  _It was like a second puberty, Bellatrix.  I felt sorrow unlike what I ever knew before, and exquisite joys._   This was long after he began dividing and protecting his soul, and long before she almost lost hers in Azkaban.  Now, he was bestowing his sweetness on this half-blooded boy, and Bellatrix was unmoved.

A fool would have interrupted the Dark Lord during such a moment of concentration.  She took a knee in the doorway and waited for him to address her.

“Stand, Bellatrix, and tell me how you have fared in the days since our most recent victory.”

Bellatrix obeyed, skimming over the details of her trip to China with Hermione.  When Bellatrix referred to her as _the mudblood_ , the Dark Lord raised a long finger to interrupt his follower.  He whispered to the unconscious Harry, “did you hear that, Harry?  My dear friend Bellatrix is taking good care of your friend Hermione. His gaze didn’t leave Harry’s face when he asked, “was there something you wanted to tell me, Bellatrix?”

She bowed. “Yes, my Lord.  I wish to inherit the Lestrange estate.”

The Dark Lord grinned at the import of Bellatrix’s request, and raised himself to his full height. “Very well, Bellatrix, but there is the small matter of the two living Lestrange brothers.”

“By your leave, my Lord, it will be no matter by morning.” Her mouth watered at the thought of moving forward with her plan.

“You have my blessing Bellatrix, though I’d like to ask a favor of you.”

“Anything, my Lord.”

“When last I checked, the Lestrange family kept a house in Fordwich to hide certain dark artifacts in case of Ministry raids on their home.  Is that still the case?”

“Yes, my Lord.” She remembered Rodolphus’ quip that he was a very accommodating landlord to muggle tenants: he paid for every one of their burials.

“Much better than many muggle landlords,” the Dark Lord said, likely having read Bellatrix’s mind. “None of the villagers should be displaced. I’d like my new headquarters to be an attractive location for the vampire community.”

Bellatrix only smiled at the Dark Lord’s consideration for vampires, despite the unfortunate affair-turned-vendetta she had in her early twenties with one of their kind.

“And the Lestrange manor house: I’d like it to be Hermione’s official residence, regardless of what housing arrangements the two of you choose.  The ballroom makes it a property most befitting one of the Minister’s cabinet members, don’t you think?”

Bellatrix could have wept.  She came to her Lord in hopes of an extremely expedited divorce.  She was receiving that, and the honor of furnishing him with his new headquarters (saving Narcissa from hosting all future official meetings for the Death Eaters), and the promise of rank for Hermione in recognition of their engagement.  Her forehead touched the floor.  “Thank you, my Lord.”

…

Rabastian didn’t remember falling asleep.  He remembered everything.  The honeyed light puddling just inside his bedroom under the door, his thyroid ticking from too many sweets and too much drink, which was abandoning his body.  He felt just as romantic as he had hours ago, celebrating with his brother, but no longer invincible.  He remembered feeling the sandy weight of his body in his bed, and closing his eyes.  And then, he couldn’t breathe.

He wouldn’t have heard Bellatrix outside, unhinging a mahogany jewelry box, not if he had kept a deliberate vigil.  It is remarkable how small a space boggarts can occupy.  This one fit back into a bag slung over Bellatrix’s shoulder after the boggart followed the darkness into Rabastian’s room.

Bellatrix turned to the next door: Rodolphus’.  He was asleep, she saw.  He wasn’t pretending, or he wouldn’t have stirred when she sat on the bed next to him.  “Rodolphus.”

He bolted out of his sleep.  “Oh, it’s you,” he said, having made his wife’s features out in the darkness.

That was his first mistake, Bellatrix would remember later.  His second one was grumbling, “get off my bed.”  His death wouldn’t be painless, then, _fine_ , she thought.

“In a moment, dear.  We should talk.”

“Tomorrow.” He lay down again and pulled the pillow down to support his shoulders.

“Like hell, tomorrow.”  She illuminated the room with a Lumos charm.  “I’ve met someone else.”

“Do they know you’ve met them, Bellatrix?”

“Oh, Rodolphus.  She’s escaped two of my attempts on her life already.  Of course she knows.”

Rodolphus sat up with a wicked grin.  “ _She?_   Surely not the filthy jailbait hanging about you after the battle?”

“The one who fought instead of clinging to the Dark Lord’s cloak?  Yes: that one.”

“Kill yourself, Bellatrix.  So, some mudblood wants to eat your withered pussy?  Fine by me.  Have fun living out a mommy fantasy with her, and leave me the fuck alone.”

Bellatrix didn’t waste any punchlines on her husband.  She stood and withdrew her dagger from its sheath, plunging into Rodolphus’ chest once and, seeing the brightest light enter his eyes, the light that others have described as mere surprise; or the reflection of the bright near-death tunnel; or neural fireworks, the effects of which are probably a bliss lost to all human memory; or heartbreak for the loss of one’s imagined futures manifesting itself as a clearness in the eye, she stabbed him again, gaining momentum and rhythm while his blood flowed over the bedsheets.  You wouldn’t believe the smell in the room: he lost control of his bowels soon, blood everywhere like a lover’s hands, and Bellatrix above him, working.  She left her dagger in his chest to wipe the sweat from her brow, smearing blood across her face in the process.

Of course some of his blood was bound to get on her.  Only afterward, when she checked a mirror, did she notice how much of it had reddened her face.  Not one to fret –the brothers were dead now, anyhow—she Scourgified herself and ordered Potocki, the Lestrange elf (her own elf, now), to get rid of the bodies.

Bellatrix apparated to the Malfoy Manor before dawn. Luckily, no house elf is a heavy sleeper.  Bentley heard her coming through the front door, dropping her cloak after she was barely past the threshold, slamming the door shut behind her, picking up a crystal ball from a shelf –

“How may I be of service, Mistress Bellatrix?”

“I was expecting you, Bentley.  Isn’t there usually a vase of some sort of flowers across the room from where I am now?  On a table about waist-high?”

“Yes, mistress. It’s there now. May I move it closer to you?”

“Please don’t, but tell me: what kind of flowers are they?”

“Trillium, mistress, with three red poppies in the center.”

“Ah, lovely. And neither of them in season.  My sister must have ordered you to preserve them for her.”  Bentley bowed low, straightened, beamed, lifting his left heel off the ground bashfully.  Bellatrix continued: “And how far away from the vase would you say I am now?”

“Five and a half meters, mistress.”

Bellatrix weighed the crystal ball in her hand before hurling it across the room.  She was dismayed, although the heavy cracking sound the ball made against the wall satisfied her senses, she knew her mark –the vase—would have sounded like dishes breaking, and had not been hit. 

“Bentley, owl to Mister Cesaire at History of the Eye. I want corrective lenses so that I can break that vase.”

“Bentley would be honored to break it for you, Mistress, though I’d have to close my legs in the front door afterward—“

“Don’t you dare, elf!  No, send the owl, and give the flowers to Miss Granger during breakfast after the post arrives.”

…

Beyond the unprecedented ease she felt among Oriane and the Malfoys under the stars, Hermione didn’t recognize the effect of the tea until she was asleep.  She was with Harry and Ron again, who had just destroyed the locket, and who did not seem to understand her when she told him, “I came running after you!  I called you!  I begged you to come back!

In the dream, she didn’t hear him speak at all, but she knew his response. “Oh, you’re _sorry_!” She laughed, a high-pitched, out-of-control sound.  Ron looked to Harry for help, and they both disappeared.  Hermione was in her parents’ house.

This was the first dream in her memory in which music was the most prominent feature.  Most of the songs she couldn’t distinguish, walking up and down the stairs, although she recognized the music from weekend mornings, her father cooking breakfast.  Upon waking, remembering the dream, she could have sworn that she could hear Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain” just as loud after closing her bedroom door as she had heard it while the door was open.

And to her surprise it was raining outside her dream, against her window, with the curtains an elusive nighttime color, so that she didn’t know whether they had been drawn open to the sky the night before when Bentley closed the door behind her.  _These are divinatory curtains!_ Hermione realized: _tonight, or perhaps tomorrow night, there will be few stars, and clouds._ As useful as she had read these curtains might be to the aspiring astronomer, Hermione was still averse to the general discipline of divination because both signs and their absence were ominous; for the first time she felt the dread of omens deeply, standing before the window, thinking,

 _If I chose wrong, what then?  If, because of the war, we all have something indefensible on our conscience, why do I still, deep down, think Albus Dumbledore could absolve me of any crime, if he were alive?_ For a long time she had grown weary of –and angry with both sides’ unquestioning obedience to one leader’s vision.  At least, there wasn’t a healthy level of doubt among the Order members, not that she could remember.  Weren’t there people –centaurs, some of the giants, ordinary witches and wizards who were politically engaged, concerned with ethics, and marginal to (or uninvolved with) the Death Eaters and the Order?  She’d asked Ron this at the end of sixth year, before Dumbledore died.

“Yeah, but I don’t reckon You-Know-Who ever got into political debates with people while he was in the middle of torturing them.”

Fair enough.  But rumor had it even then that Voldemort wasn’t the only leader responsible for torture and disappearances.  The Ministry did it all the time –disappeared people—that was an historical fact.  Muggle crime was up, too.  The Order?  Moody never boasted, but everyone knew he was an accomplished killer, and not the only one among the Order’s ranks.  Then there were organizations with a perceived but illusory allegiance to the Death Eaters: Daughters of Mab, the Lillim, gangs of vampires ( _anarchist_ vampires, the _Daily Prophet_ had begun to emphasize the previous year).  Really all news she’d gotten on the run was rumor and hearsay from the wireless radio.

A purr of thunder broke her reverie.  What time was it?  She felt better-rested than she had in the past year, but there were too many clouds to tell how high the sun had risen.  She turned to make the bed.  Even as she raised her wand, while she envisioned the sheets squared and straightened, and the comforter turned down under the pillows, before she called the spell to mind, the bedclothes began to arrange themselves to conform to her mental image. 

At Hogwarts, she had excelled at wordless magic, and read ambitiously about wandless powers certain witches and wizards cultivated over entire lifetimes.  Hermione had never accomplished wordless magic with so little effort, almost inadvertently. 

There was a knock at the door, which Hermione answered.

“Good morning, Mistress Hermione.” Bentley said, drawing a florid blush from her. 

“Good morning, Bentley.  How are you this morning?”  She felt a twinge of guilty pleasure; she suspected the question would make Bentley just as uncomfortable as being called “Mistress” by a house-elf had made her feel.

“Bentley is!” The house-elf nearly shouted, grinning his slack-jawed grin.  “Mistress instructed Bentley to invite you to breakfast this morning, and to show you the clothes closet.”


End file.
